Garden Wisdom

When I decided that I really wanted to make a good effort at growing a garden, I decided that I needed to know as much as I could to grow the best I could.

Now, I love the Internet, and I probably spend more time than I should on it, but to me, it's like having a library in my home and I LOVE that.  Sad to say though, I haven't been to my library in years, but that's another story.

Anyway, I found a few books, that I actually did purchase and this is one of them.

"Garden Wisdom and Know How: Everything You Need to Know to Plant, Grow and Harvest"

It is from the Editors of Rodale Gardening Books, of which I get the Organic Gardening magazine.  Made here in the United States.

The only thing that I don't like about the book is the print size.  As you can see, the book is rather large, it contains a lot, but the print is small.

There are 10 chapters in the book and I have found a number of items in the book that have been helpful with my garden this year and I have not completed reading it.

The first chapter, Getting Started, is 74 pages long and it talks mostly about learning the zone you live in and composting.  Growing your soil.
I have learned a lot from just one chapter of this book and I am reading into the next chapter now, which is "Gardening Techniques and Tricks".

Do you have a favorite, go to, gardening book?

Something I learned

We haven't always lived here.  We spent 10 years in the Midwest.  Learning to garden there took years.

But I had one gardener friend, JL.  We worked together, and I had many conversations with him about when to plant, what to grow, when to harvest.  He had been gardening/farming there his whole life.  I am sure some days he couldn't understand why I was asking such questions, surely everyone did "this" or "that" at the same time.  He had always lived there.  I had not.

Anyway, I learned a lot from JL.  One thing I learned from his was this.

Every spring, when we would have our first thunderstorm, he would go to his work closet to his calendar and count ahead six months and mark the calendar.  He told me he did this because that was the day the first frost would be, give or take a week.  And usually, he was right.

This year, the six month date, for me, was Tuesday, September 10th.  On September 10th and the 11th this year, we had 90 degree weather, out of no where it came.  No, no frost.

On Monday evening, September 16th, we had our first frost.

Give or take a week.

I think of JL every spring during the first thunderstorm and every fall when the first frost is due.

Do you have someone who mentored you with your gardening?  I'd love to hear your story.

Until next time, grow where you are planted.

scented geranium and regular geranium